To think teaching should be one of the highest paid jobs?

[donutque]

Not a teacher, but my logic seems sound.

I’ve seen plenty of threads / comments on here that question if teachers are really that underpaid (often quoting 28k as a starting salary) which seems like a strange race to the bottom.

I work in finance and wouldn’t take a job for a low salary, I’m in my twenties and I’m compensated well. I believe I deserve that, I name my price when I go for jobs and won’t accept lower. This is because I’m 1) qualified 2) have a skill and the market demands me, I am in short supply.

I can see a response I may get is that
teachers, whilst good, aren’t necessarily the most intelligent or talented / high quality individuals. But IS IT ANY WONDER?! The top talent graduates and gets sucked in by the big 4 / investment banks / magic circle all because of money (I promise you that it is rare that a child just bloody loves debits and credits, has a passion for selling stock, or checking the bank statement matches the p&l) Of course, some top grads go into teaching but this is usually because of their personality type (desire to give back / do good / love of children). It’s not the common occurrence. They certainly aren’t doing it for the big pay off.

So if teachers started on, let’s say, £30k but upon qualifying were paid £50k, with a teacher with 5-10 years service being on 60/70/80/90k (no extra responsibility), I guarantee applications would be flooded. Teaching would be a career that is attractive. You’d have the best teachers, which is important. Not just for basic education but teachers are what gets your little offspring into university to become the next doctor, lawyer, politician, plumber, accountant and so on. Teachers are LITERALLY the backbone of society.

Scandi countries document well how education leads to greater GDP, and a basic understanding of economics will explain why paying teachers well is far more beneficial to the economy than anyone who says “but how do we afford it?!”

so, AIBU to think teaching should be one of the highest paid jobs?

Interesting that some think teachers are not clever enough to be paid more. I always thought the opposite. I got top grades and became a teacher. I have seen many of my contemporaries over the years earn more than me, and I remember them in school and wonder how they did it. For example, doctors who didn't get the grades I did in science, or bankers who weren't that good at maths.
Interesting also that some think you should be paid according to your level of education. Actually, you can discuss your worth when you take a new job, and negotiate a different point on the pay scale if you feel you have relevant experience. I know many teachers who have done this.
I do think the holidays and pension are worth a lot. I also think that different schools can mean hugely different teaching experiences.
I am quite happy with my pay and conditions now. When I started I found the pressure and workload really hard though, and the money did not compensate.

I couldn’t agree more OP. I’m a Teacher, and your support and understanding means a lot.

Well, haven't read through the whole thread so not sure if this point of view has been put.

My experience of teachers is both positive and negative.

First group - dedicated teachers, doing it because they wanted to teach and genuinely interested in children. It was a vocation rather than a job. Tended to have good relationships with the children.

The second group were doing it purely to earn money, not really interested in children, had no clue about SEN, shouted a lot and generally out of their depth and generally gave up teaching after a year or so because it was just a job not a vocation and it was more hassle than they were expecting. The TAs did more of the actual teaching than the teacher did.

I would favour starting salaries for teachers to be lower, but with the knowledge that they will increase long term. Nurture the first group, they are invaluable, discourage the second group.

And I would go back to some sort of teacher training that isn't all about having a degree before you can even apply. Just because someone has a degree doesn't mean they can - or should - teach.

And I would go back to some sort of teacher training that isn't all about having a degree before you can even apply. Just because someone has a degree doesn't mean they can - or should - teach.
That's happening. But the problem is that those who are qualified are so pressed that schools are struggling to find staff to mentor trainees who have degrees in their subject, let alone those who also need to gain that knowledge alongside the skills of teaching.

I agree OP. Former teacher here (I still work in education). To be a good teacher requires knowledge of content plus skills to actually pass that on - interpreting the syllabus and designing lesson plans that engage a class of kids with different learning styles and needs is not easy.

Finland recognises that - you need a masters to be a teacher there, and teachers are paid appropriately. And before anyone starts on the 'oh but they have a small population so it's easy for them' actually this does not help - in the UK we have a larger, younger population so a much bigger tax base. Classes are also not small in Finland - up to 35 like the UK.

Do you normally communicate using acronyms without defining them? Are you really a communication professional - it’s quite incredible. We’d pull our team up on that kind of nonsense especially on written word - it really is quite poor. And it says it all about who you are.

Does it? If you say so.

As long as enough people are still willing to teach, the supply is there.
Precisely. The O

PGCE counts towards masters credits. Many teachers do go on to gain the full MA ed. Either way, it's still a post graduate qualification.

And anecdotally the vast majority of teachers I know do the PGCE route rather than BA Ed. I've only actually met 2 or 3 teachers that have been doing it straight from uni.

Seriously the academic grades of most teachers - GCSEs, A-levels, etc - are appalling

Really? Most teachers I work with have Masters degrees, and a not insignificant number have PhDs. Teachers are generally successful products of the system - the people.who get the highest grades.

Completely agree. Govt is currently not prioritising the education of our next generation of young people and it is worrying.

Absolutely this
I hired a maths tutor for my dd1
. The tutor was someone who had struggled with maths when young , but had been fortunate to get a fantastic maths teacher in year 9 and had grown to love the subject
Dd1 flourished with this tutor and I believe it was because this tutor had empathy, patience because of her own experience

The OP is very naive for a lesson who claims to be a high flyer who names their own price.
And to assume that people become teachers out of altruism.
Teachers have taken on more and more tasks whilst grumbling but still complying.
Instead of striking, unions should push back on the non-teaching tasks and reclaim it as a profession -which it once was.

I think if you want to pay teachers more you need to up entry requirements a lot. And if you pay more they shouldn’t be given tax free bursaries as well.

And how many times I have interviewed people with several masters and a phd and their ability to communicate was shockingly poor. Know your audience, think about them when you communicate, expressing complex ideas simply, is an impressive talent. Listening to a 15 who struggles with maths saying she asked her maths teacher (that she was quite terrified of) to explain something and his reply was if you thought about it you’d understand it. I despair at this type of attitude and money won’t fix it - you can help a kid think about it if you wanted to. This was a good kid, engaged and trying hard but she was being failed. If she doesn’t get her maths GCSE where does that leave her?

I think there should be more flexibility and intuitive thinking around ways of teaching too. Computer science for example is really important for students but there aren't enough teachers because they can earn much more for less responsibility elsewhere.

Paying a substantially higher wage won't be popular with other teachers and fair enough, but there are things that could be done. For example I have no desire to teach full time again (I used to teach primary), but I would happily do a few sessions a week to students at secondary level. I have a degree and experience in the sector much of which aligns to the curriculum. Heck I'd possibly even do it for free or for a low wage as I'm well compensated in my day to day role, but there's no mechanism for this. i have colleagues who are the same.

I see why- there's not enough continuity or whatever else but this is already an issue as teachers are pulled from unreleated subjects to cover. I also know you can't just walk into teaching it definitely takes a set of skills and knowledge so not downplaying that, but I'm sure there are ways.

We can’t up the entry requirements because we currently are recruiting nowhere near the number of teachers we need with the entry requirements that we have.

Improve pay and conditions to a point where we actually have merely sufficient teachers, then we can start being picky about teacher quality.

At the moment we are very much in ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ crisis mode.

DD’s private school only uses unqualified ‘subject specialist’ teachers for STEM but they still get paid more than qualified teachers (and for fewer hours) because the aim is to attract from industry and have them ‘guest lecture’ so the skills they teach are fresh.

I think if you want to pay teachers more you need to up entry requirements a lot

Currently you need a degree with substantial (at least 50%) content of the subject you intend to teach and/or you need a degree and to have completed a SKE course prior to starting your PGCE (which is a post-grad qualification) What other qualifications do you expect people to have, exactly?

then we can start being picky about teacher quality
How cynical!
No-don't years the port quality ones.
Kids deserve that we be picky

It's not cynical, it's realistic.

Here's the trend for teacher vacancies and trainee teacher recruitment.

Kids have to have an adult in the classroom in front of them, we are not allowed to send them home just because they don't have a teacher (if we were, bloody hell parents would cotton on quickly just how bad things are).

Would you rather that body in the room were a teacher who met lower entry requirements, but is still a trained teacher who can make some attempt to teach them, or if it was just anyone with a pulse who handed them a worksheet and then put their feet up?

Because that's where we're at. The option to be picky about teacher quality isn't available, because the alternative is NO teacher.

And there are plenty of kids out there right now with NO teacher. It's awful.

I think the performance needs to be assessed more rigorously, but have no issue with more pay. Should be performance based, like other jobs. And less interference from entitled parents (like we see on here sometimes!)

Pay rises are performance based as are the grade rises.

As always the big question is how do you assess the performance of a teacher when the base material (unlike industry) is ever changing from day to day?

Michael Gove introduced performance related pay for teachers.

As always the big question is how do you assess the performance of a teacher

Generally it depends on whether the school can afford to give the teacher a pay rise then finds the evidence to suit.

And occasionally if the management like the teacher.